


The Church of Hot Addiction

by Abbie, RosieTwiggs



Series: Bound by Blood [5]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Dry Humping, F/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Vampire!Oliver, bound by blood verse, but not really??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2014-08-12
Packaged: 2018-02-12 20:31:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2123655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abbie/pseuds/Abbie, https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosieTwiggs/pseuds/RosieTwiggs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’d always known the heat affected him - made his hunger an almost tangible thing, right beneath his skin. But the lust - the lust is new.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Church of Hot Addiction

It is  _so hot_.

An incredible late heatwave has rolled over Starling like a sweltering wool blanket, catching the entire city unprepared and dressed too warmly. All her citizens dig through put-away wardrobes for thinner, scantier clothing, kick their heating over to A/C where they can, opening doors and windows and screens where they can’t.

In the basement underneath Verdant, the heat has crouched like a predator, seeping down through the day’s trickling hours to sit heavily in the air, oppressive and thick.

Diggle had gone home over an hour ago, bitterly griping about having left this sort of weather behind in the desert. He loudly decamped for his air conditioned apartment, and Felicity, sighing, had wistfully grumped a goodbye and muttered a longing for popsicles and ice cream.

She isn’t leaving. The heat threatens her machines, her precious stockpile of information-weapons, which thrive on coolness and controlled climate. Felicity has declared a moratorium on any not-strictly-necessary vigilantism and shut down every system and machine she could spare, and some she sits with in the floor, skinned of their hard casings and guts open to her small, nimble hands.

Oliver doesn’t know why he is still here, except that something restless is prowling his ribcage and makes him grind his molars at the thought of leaving Felicity alone down here, lonely but for plastic and metal and her own heartbeat

which throbs

slow

steady

sure

a pulsating beat richer and more hypnotic in Oliver’s ears than anything that has ever shaken the club floors over their heads. It’s a thrumming rhythm running undeniable in the background, and even when he distracts himself and doesn’t pay attention, he finds his fingers twitching in time, his  _breathing_ hitching to her beat.

There’s something wrong with him in this heat.

It doesn’t make sense. He fumbles and scrabbles at this vampire thing, but he’s not entirely new to it. The island, when not bitterly cold, was brutally hot. And there’s a heat unique to Hong Kong that is dust and humidity and rancid air. He was in fangs long enough in both of those places to have discovered an adverse reaction to extreme temperatures, but this…

 _This_  is something different, and he doesn’t know  _what_ , and he doesn’t know  _why_.

His senses, always a little sharper than human, are intermittently roaring to attention, and his bloodlust is an electric current humming like an itch just underneath his skin at every moment, viciously ignoring the  _three_  blood bags he’s drained today alone.

He keeps his back to her, but every tiny, soft sound Felicity makes hits him with a shiver as if it’s happening right against his ear. She hums curiously, breathes a smug, satisfied “ _ha_ ”, swears under her breath as she chases a wire with her fingertips. He can  _hear_  the damp slide of her tongue against her lips, and every tiny shift in position rustles her clothes against her skin against the floor and scrapes across his eardrums like white noise on headphones with the volume dialed all the way up.

And the  _smell_.

It’s hot, and she sweats. It isn’t unpleasant, sour sweat, tanged by anxiety or fear, filthy with body odor or poor health. It’s a new, sharp musk in the air. It dampens her hair at her nape and her temples, stirring as well the scents of her shampoo, fruity, tropical, evocative of ripe, sweet flesh, dripping juice under the break of teeth.

Her hair is gathered in a knot at the top of her head, out of the way, and it leaves her long, slender neck naked and vulnerable, tempting him, promising him salt on her skin if he just laps it up with his tongue.

Fuck, he is so  _goddamn hungry_.

He should leave. He knows he should leave, but he just  _can’t_. His body physically refuses to fall in line with what every ounce of common sense he has is telling him to do.

Felicity exhales a deep sigh, and he can see the rise and fall of her chest in his mind’s eye, feel it as though her chest was pressed against his, taste her breath on his tongue.

It’s never been like this. In all the years, both on the island and off, and then back in Starling, he’s never felt the bad weather quite like this. He’s come to recognize that his heightened physiology just doesn’t handle the heat well, needing extra blood to keep his temperature steady, his body loose, and his mind at ease. Once, when he’d had no one to answer to, when he’d been dead to the world, he had just fed on whatever poor soul he stumbled across in Hong Kong. When he’d first returned to Starling City, he’d been able to get bagged blood, something that saved him and countless others when a heat wave struck in the first month after his homecoming.

But fuck, the bagged blood isn’t cutting it. He wants  _hers_.

He heads over to the refrigerated medical drawer where they keep the AB positive and yanks it open. He glares down at the row of bags. He doesn’t want them. He doesn’t want cold blood, heavy with anti-coagulants. He knows he could polish off the entire stock and it wouldn’t curb the hunger gnawing at him, because he’s also recognized that it isn’t only the blood he needs, but  _Felicity’s_ _body_  pressed up against his, every one of his senses overwhelmed by her touch, taste, smell.  _God_ , he’s half hard just thinking about –

“Are you okay?”

Oliver clenches his jaw so tightly he hears it creak. He turns slowly, to find Felicity standing, brushing her hands on  _very_ short shorts, his eyes raking over legs that seem to go on for miles and, not for the first time, he wonders what sounds she’d make if he had her on the floor, feeding from the artery on the inside of her thigh, right near her apex. He swallows convulsively, mouth filling with saliva.

His fangs are elongating, just looking at her, with one strap of her tank-top hanging off her shoulder, hair curling in the humidity at the base of her neck where it’s come loose from her bun. Her cheeks are flushed, her nose dotted slightly with sweat and  _fuck_  she looks like every wet dream he’s ever had come to life.

He’s breathing heavily now, and he growls without even intending to, so low she can’t hear it, but he knows he’s crossing into dangerous territory.

Felicity takes a step towards him, and this time the growl permeates the air around them, muted only slightly by the humidity.

“Don’t!”

Felicity freezes.

“Don’t come near me,” he says, biting the inside of his cheek. He tastes his own blood.

Felicity looks completely confused. “What? Why? What’s going on, Oliver?”

Why hasn’t he left yet? Why is he still here? Why the  _fuck_ isn’t he running?

“It’s.. the heat – I can’t – I’m not-”

He clenches his eyes shut, hands forming fists while he tries to control his breathing. He only  _just_  registers that her scent has drawn closer when her small hand closes on his arm.

All at once, his fangs come out fully, fire exploding from the point of contact between them on his arm to the rest of his body. His eyes shoot open, and if he was even capable of registering her expression in that moment, he would have seen the surprise at his pupils fully dilated. It happens so fast – one second she’s standing in front of him, politely curious, the next he has her on the med table, growling into her neck, gripping her hips as he lets her scent overwhelm him completely.

“Oliver!” she cries out, and the sharpness of her tone draws him back, but he doesn’t let go of her. He  _can’t_  at this point.

She’s spread out on the table, now even more flushed, chest rising and falling, and he doesn’t know what he wants more, to bite into her, or to pull her tank-top down and draw one of her breasts into his mouth.

Either way he knows he wants to hear her crying out for him.

He wonders for a moment if she’ll try to run. And  _God_ , the small part of humanity still railing inside of him that this is wrong is horrified, because he knows that if she does, he won’t let her leave.

But Felicity.

 _Felicity_.

Felicity sits up slowly, never breaking eye contact – the same way prey watches its predator. until he’s settled in-between her legs. She swallows, and Oliver’s eyes flicker to her throat for a second before returning to watch her, to see what she’ll do.

Almost as though she knows how easily capable he is of spooking right now, she raises her hand carefully, placing it over his chest, and then –

Then she tilts her head to the side.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he mutters. It’s all he needs. He doesn’t even  _try_  to soothe her before he leans in and bites through her skin.

~*~

Felicity couldn’t say she isn’t  _nervous_ , what with the way Oliver is clearly losing hold of his bloodlust.

But even though he’s looking at her with those drowning eyes, with the most unadulterated expression of pure, animal  _hunger_ Felicity has ever seen, even when he snatches her by the waist and all but  _slams_  her back against the medical bench, even as he covers her body with most of his and buries his face against her neck, rumbling in his throat and his chest, she is nervous, she is worried, she is startled.

But she isn’t  _scared_.

"Oliver!"

His name is sharp in her mouth, bursting off her tongue like a bullet fired—and she tells herself that fluttering tightness in her chest isn’t panic beating its wings—and it seems, for just a moment, to remind him of himself.

He leverages off of her, his hands still gripping tight low on her waist like she’s his hold on sanity, on control. His eyes are singularities that drink up the light and promise to devour her, but she’s just relieved he’s  _looking_ at her.

If he’s making eye contact, it means he’s seeing her, recognizing her. She doesn’t know how his hunger got wound so high, but if it’s just desperation, if it’s just  _need_ , she can handle that.

They’ve been handling his desperate needs together for quite a while now.

A cool confidence spreads through her chest as she pushes to a sitting position with the heels of her hands, her knees falling to either side of his hips to let him comfortably close. Keeping hold of Oliver’s gaze, she blows out a measured, steadying breath. She can help. She knows just what to do.

His chest is heaving with great, thirsty breaths, and she just wants to help him calm a little, just a little, to come back down far enough to let her help him manage this.

Even so, she’s never  _seen_  him this strung out—and it  _is_  strung out, like he’s going to tear out of his skin at any moment if he can’t get his mouth against her vein—and she licks her lips hurriedly, nerving up. She braces herself; she has a feeling he’s got no room in him for gentle conscientiousness just now. This will be a rough feed, but she can take it.

She just needs to stay present enough to keep track of how deep he drinks of her, to help him stop if he loses himself too far.

(Oliver’s eyes track the tip of her tongue on her lips and she shivers, the heat of his gaze putting the temperature of the day to shame.)

Trying to maintain his focus, to keep him with her, she tentatively lifts her hand and settles it over his heart—racing, pounding beneath her palm like a wild drumbeat—and tilts her head, lengthening and exposing her neck, offering what he so clearly badly needs.

His breath hitches in his chest under her fingers, the word “ _Fuck_ " biting hard in his mouth—

and then he’s on her, fangs punching through her skin through her vein like tissue paper, mouth locking down around the rough wound.

Felicity cries out a little in surprise and sharp, unexpected pain. The fingers on his chest curl and twist in his soft, gray cotton t-shirt, her other hand repeating the move as Oliver takes his first hard, deep pull on her vein, the sensation much more ache and discomfort than the pain-edged pleasure she’s becomes so used to.

He  _gulps_ , like he’s dying of this thirst—once, twice, three times, and she gasps with each one, mouth open and eyes squeezed shut as her forehead falls against his collarbone.

She is tense, clutching at his shirt for dear life; it  _hurts_  more than it ever has before, more than she expected. But then he slows down, suckling now, licking and sipping at her, taking his time like he’s really  _tasting_  her, savoring her.

Gusting a shuddering exhale into Oliver’s chest, Felicity begins to relax into him;  _this_ , this is familiar. This feeding, still more intense than usual, is much closer to their normal encounters, and she takes it as a sign that he’s gathering his control, coming back to himself now he’s gotten what he needs.

Any minute now, he’ll pull reluctantly off of her neck, shamefaced and apologizing.

For just a moment, she lets herself ease against his hold, indulges in the little shocks and pulses of pure  _pleasure_  that jolt straight down through her at the light scrape of his teeth, each sharp little suck at her skin, every firm, hot, wet stroke of his tongue. She lets the sensation flood her with warmth and tingling languor, chasing away the dull ache of his bite.

Distantly, she becomes aware of the little breathless hums vibrating in her throat, and of the way Oliver’s palms have been drifting up and down her sides, now slowly inching down her hips, kneading, tugging at the jegging-thin material of her shorts, his palms spreading to cover more territory.

Heat flushes up into her face, and her lashes part, sucking her lower lip between her teeth as his jaw works against her throat, tongue dragging long and slow along her skin, drinking in every stray drop of blood to the site of the wound where his fangs still sit snug in her vein.

Sighing, she knows it’s time to stop, to remind him that he’s taken enough to tide him over, to help him keep hold of himself.

Only hesitating a moment, Felicity exhales sharply from her nose and opens her hands on Oliver’s shirt, smoothing the palms down over the bunched wrinkles she’s made, coming to a rest high on his stomach.

Turning her face close in to his jaw, she lifts her chin to bring her mouth closer to his ear and murmurs, “Oliver.”

It’s then that she realizes whatever control she thought he had regained was an illusion.

As she says his name, her breath skating warm against his skin, Oliver growls, deep and feral, fangs still in her flesh so the sound vibrates right into her bones. His hands kneading at her hips slip around and she gasps a soft yelp as he takes full grasp of her ass, dragging her forward, hips jerking between her thighs.

"Oliver!"

His name rips from her throat as electricity shoots down her spine, connecting between his mouth on her neck and his hands kneading her ass, and she arches into him, immediately coming into contact with clear evidence that Oliver is just as aroused as she is.

This isn’t about just her blood. And while she’d always known… always realized the effect these interactions had on  _her_ , she had adamantly believed they were nothing more than utilitarian for him. She was  _so_ wrong.

He tightens his hold on her, circling his hips right up against her center and she gasps, the pressure making her toes curl in her sandals.

“Ooohh…” she breathes out, her eyes falling shut. She should be putting an end to it, but this has never happened before, she’s not sure if she can.

Fuck, he’s right there, pushing up against her, and she can feel how wet she is for him already.

Does she even  _want_  to stop him?

An extra-long pull at her neck has her gasping and arching once more, and Oliver growls again.

 _God_. She wants this. Wants him.

_Wants._

Her hands are still flat on his chest and she slides her right one up to his neck, pulling his head down fully against her neck, curls her fingers tightly in his hair and  _moans_.

Oliver freezes for just a moment and then a violent shiver runs through him, she can  _feel_  it. He pulls away from her neck and for a moment Felicity worries that he might stop, but instead he flattens his tongue against the bite for a moment before biting into her  _again_.

“Oliver!” she cries out, tightening her left hand in to a fist and slamming it against his chest. This time the pain is secondary to the intense wave of  _euphoria_  that washes over her.

She brings both hands down and around him to grip his ass, pulling his hips into her even more, needing the friction in between then, craving some sort of  _release_. Oliver responds with a gruff shake of his head, embedding his fangs in her even further. They’re both holding onto each other, grinding, pushing, pulling,  _needing_ … Felicity has never been this turned on in her  _life_.

Her head falls back on another gasp and she looks straight up into the bright lights hanging over-head, drowning in ecstasy. Her fingers and toes are beginning to go numb and she knows he’s taking too much but oh god, she’s spent so many nights picturing this - coming with his fangs in her - calling out his name as she touched herself, trying to remember the sharp pleasure-pain of his feedings.

She shuts her eyes, trying to catch her breath. He’s everywhere, around her, against her,  _inside her - fuck –_

She comes with a scream.

~*~

He would know the exact moment she came even if her voice  _wasn’t_ echoing off of the foundry walls.

With a sudden burst, her blood turns thick and heady, flooding his mouth with the result of her pleasure, oxytocin exploding like starbursts on his tongue, shooting straight to his cock. He flexes his hands on her ass, pushing tightly into her, drawing one, two, three more pulls of blood before he comes with a shuddering groan against her, suckling through it.

They’re both breathing heavily as they come down, and for the first time since the heat-wave started, Oliver’s hunger has abated.

Then Felicity begins to shiver violently against him, and all at once, Oliver realizes what he’s done.

Slowly, carefully— _guiltily_ —Oliver eases his fangs free of Felicity’s skin; little droplets of blood seep up in the wounds, and without thought, he strokes his tongue over the punctures, lapping up the little blood and soothing the injury.

Pulling his tongue back into his mouth, he closes it behind gritted teeth, hissing, “ _Shit_ _,_ " against Felicity’s skin.

It’s as if he pokes her with a cattle prod.

Inhaling sharply, her hands release his ass—and god, he can feel little half-moon indentations left behind through the denim of his jeans.

Oliver follows Felicity’s example, suddenly remembering his fingers cupping the roundness of her backside. He releases her like a hot brand.

He stands straight abruptly, hands hovering uselessly at waist height, and slides one foot back.

 _What has he done_?

He catches but one glimpse of Felicity’s face—lashes dark crescents behind her glasses, stark on pale cheeks; her lips bitten red, the lower still held between her teeth—before she sways and falls into him.

He catches her shoulders and her hands brace against his chest. Her head tucks beneath his chin for less than a second before she is pushing back from him, building space between her arms.

Oliver’s jaw ticks, but she doesn’t look at him. He averts his eyes in shame, awash in stunned self-loathing. She puts her hands against the bench and locks her elbows, and Oliver takes three steps back—away from her.

 _Never_  has he suffered such a catastrophic loss of control—except that ended in death. And glancing again at Felicity’s paper-white complexion, he wonders if this—this lapse, this error, this stolen  _sin_ , might not have pushed that line as well as all the others it had gleefully trampled.

"Oliver," Felicity murmurs, licking her lips, trembling visibly on the table—legs now locked together, but  _Jesus_ , he can see the dull shine high on her inner thighs.

His name hits him like a bullet, and he jumps—from the hot pulse of residual desire, from the snap of the broken silence, from the stupor of his shock and shame.

"Felicity—" he starts, "I’m so—I’m sorry—you need—I should get you—"

She winces, one of her hands reaching up to cover the closing holes in her throat. Her eyes shine, and it isn’t the lights. “I don’t need a transfusion. I’ll be—I’ll be fine. Just.” She lists slightly to the side, straightens. She still doesn’t look at him. “Maybe some of the—the herbs. And then I’ll… go.”

Oliver swallows.

He doesn’t know what to do.

He doesn’t know what to  _say_.

How do you apologize to a friend you have  _violated_  while out of your mind? Where does he even  _start_?

He doesn’t know how. He’s afraid—of himself. For her.

"Right. I’ll just—" he turns towards the battered old trunk where his stores of herbs, which they both know will help her recover far more quickly from the blood loss, are kept. His motion makes him acutely aware of the sticky, wet, uncomfortable mess that is the front of his jeans.

 _Christ_ , he hasn’t come in his pants since he was—much younger, though apparently not as  _much_  stupider as he’d thought.

He walks stiffly towards the trunk, battling back a sudden barrage of remembered image and sensation of Felicity curved around him, of her body enveloping and welcoming his own, of friction and grasping and  _gasping_  and hot blood bursting bright on his tongue—

Oliver grinds his molars and jerks up the lid of the trunk, snatching out the container of herbs. Keeping his back to Felicity—but god, he’s still so  _attuned_  to her, the quiet rhythm of her breath, the unsteady, rapid beat of her heart loud in his ears;  _every_  smell on her, anxiety, sweat, sex, and  _him_ —he removes a mortar and pestle from the trunk, closes it, and pours a small measure of the leaves into the bowl.

He quickly pulverizes the dried plant into powder, using perhaps more force than necessary—the stone of the pestle scrapes and creaks against the bowl, gratingly loud distress.

Tapping the powder off the pestle, he sets it aside and carries the bowl to the mini fridge, removing a bottle of water. He breaks the seal on the cap as he unscrews it—so many broken things in this room tonight, trust, promises,  _him_ —and carefully pours the powder into the water, replacing the cap and shaking it vigorously to mix.

When the  water is a murky, medium green-brown, he finally turns again towards Felicity.

She’s exactly as he left her, though her arms now wrap her middle and her shoulders hunch against tiny shivers—despite the  _goddamn_  heat.

She keeps her eyes lowered, face set in neutral stone—with trembling lips—as he approaches, drinking in this last guilty sight of her.

He knows he will run. If he doesn’t first, she will. This is not something either of them is prepared to face.

He stops three feet from her dangling toes—only just noticing her feet are bare, her sandals on the concrete below them, one overturned, the other facing backward. He extends his arm, holding the water bottle by the cap so no contact need be made between them.

She glances furtively up, stopping short of his eyes, attention dropping to the bottle as her fingers curl around its base. Her hold secure, he lets go.

Swallowing hard, he clears his throat and says hoarsely, “Drink all of it.” She nods. He shifts his weight, grimacing again at the awkward discomfort of his pants. “I’m going to—I need to—I’m gonna go change.”

He isn’t proud of how quickly he turns around and strides away, of how he snatches up a pair of sweatpants from the sloppily folded stack beside the trunk, or of how he escapes into the bathroom, careful to close the door  _quietly_  behind him.

He isn’t proud, in this moment, of  _anything_.

~*~

Felicity struggles to unscrew the cap on the water bottle, lips bitten between her teeth and tears gathering in her eyes, as Oliver closes the bathroom door behind him. Did he have to close the cap so  _damn_  tight?

Swearing, she finally pulls it free, and lifts the bottle in two shaking hands to take a sip.

She grimaces. It’s disgusting.

But she  _feels_  disgusting—cheap, humiliated, used, guilty, like  _she_  used Oliver, like she betrayed him, or they betrayed each other, somehow—and downing the foul swill will let her copy Oliver’s tactics and flee, herself.

Inhaling and exhaling measuredly, she sets her spine and tips the bottle back, eyes screwing shut tight and she fights not to gag as she chugs down the herbal water.

When it is drained, she sets the empty plastic container aside, cap on, and  _breathes_. After a few minutes—long, excruciatingly miserable,  _quiet_ minutes—she begins to feel steadier, and then the shaking in her body recedes to the finest tremor.

Hands on the edge of the medical bench, Felicity slips down, testing the support of her legs—wincing at the friction-burn on her inner thighs, and the sticky  _mess_  in her panties.

Her feet ground her solidly, and she lets go of the bench. Carefully, she toes her sandals into position in front of her feet, and slips them on.

She is crossing the room to gather her purse from her desk when the bathroom door clicks softly open.

Felicity flinches, turning her face just a little more to try and remove the bathroom door—and Oliver—from her periphery, and continues walking until she reaches her station.

It’s only then that she looks up at him.

He is watching her, eyes dark, shadowed, rounded, haunted with guilt, with  _disgust_ , and they may as well be burning coals for as well as they scorch her.

Felicity opens her mouth, fingers on the strap of her bag, but nothing comes out.

Oliver reluctantly intervenes into the hush. “Felicity. You’re…”

She doesn’t know if he means to say  _okay_  or  _better_  or  _leaving_ , but she doesn’t want to find out, either. Her voice comes to life again and she picks up his sentence, adamant. “Steadier.”

"Good," he replies stiffly. One hand grips the doorjamb so tight she’s surprised the wood doesn’t creak.

Felicity’s eyes fall away. She can’t believe how she has taken advantage of him—of his trust, his  _instincts_ —now his guilt. Gulping down threatening tears, she sucks in a shuddering breath. “Um, I’m sorry—and uh, don’t worry… worry about me—it! I mean don’t worry about  _it._  I uh, you needed—and I could—and I’m sorry—I’m going to just—just—”

She doesn’t look at him as she spins and strides hurriedly for—and up—the stairs. She punches in the code with shaking fingers, pushes open the door, and doesn’t— _cannot_ —look back.

~*~

Oliver lets her run away, and he doesn’t follow.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for sticking with me and Abbie as we worked our way through this one! We have a whole slew of additional fics lined up in this verse. Some will come earlier in the timeline, some later. WE're not really writing it chronologically. Let us know what you think of the Bound by Blood verse! And feel free to follow us on tumblr - rosietwiggs.tumblr.come and absentlyabbie.tumblr.com!


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